


The Growth of a Paladin

by lettadaloki



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: As awkward as a heart-to-heart as you can make it, Drinking, I'll put them in a friendship sweater if i have to, I'm doing what Bethesda didn't do here by making them bond, John and Danse have a heart-to-heart, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Mentions of the Lone Wanderer, Outpost Zimonja, Post-Blind Betrayal, The Sole Survivor has died, This is short and finished, minutemen ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:19:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettadaloki/pseuds/lettadaloki
Summary: Hancock makes a visit to see Paladin Danse only 5 months after Nora's death.





	The Growth of a Paladin

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a piece for an RP I'm a part of and thought it made enough sense to share with the Fallout community. In this story, the Sole Survivor known as Nora had walked the Commonwealth for 2 years before being killed tragically by a courser. This is my first attempt at writing Danse, and I hope I did the character justice.

_**Outpost Zimonja** _

_**May 2nd, 2290** _

* * *

 

  John had taken a long walk to this place. He could've taken a shortcut, since the journey from Sanctuary Hills wasn't absurdly far, but he needed to think. He'd thought, and thunk, and pondered and wondered for a good hour, even taking a scenic route to loop the trail a second time. 

  The last time he had seen Paladin Danse was Nora's funeral. They had hugged, and made peace with one another, and reminisced on memories of the past. The time before that, was a run that Nora had made to an old bunker that Danse was hiding out in. He'd stopped shaving and wouldn't wear anything but his orange jumpsuit, claiming that it was the punishing scarlet letter he'd have to wear for the rest of his life. And the time even before that? He and Nora were begging Elder Maxson to spare his life. 

 _Look at how far he's come,_ John thought. 

  He didn't like Danse when they first met, but he didn't like a lot of Brotherhood of Steel members, and he was no exception to the word 'tool'. Danse didn't like him either. Nora told him once that he hated ghouls because his friend turned into a supermutant, but John wasn't convinced. Every Brotherhood member he'd met had the same hatred for ghouls, synths, and supermutants.

  Up the hill John walked, greeted by the rickety clicking sound of machined turrets peeking at him, and then humming upon biometric recognition. He continued up the hill to the settlement John wished Nora would've just walked away from. The settlement was cramped to begin with, having been a small radio shack surrounded by boulders too big for any mutant to move. In the center of perfectly good farming land was a power armor frame that had been so badly damaged that they couldn't even enter it. Nora insisted instead to let the hubflowers take over into a beautiful statue. Even aside from the small farm land, the buildings they had were too small to be livable and too big to be scrapped in one day. It was hard to build on the settlement, but somehow they did it, and now Danse was running it all.

  The settlement was thriving, and in the back of his head he heard Nora laughing at him for ever doubting Danse and the pothole of a settlement. It had expanded upwards with the use of the sturdy foundation that the old radio tower already had built. There was water, and stalks of corn and razorgrain growing behind it all, with that silly little power armor frame stuck in the middle of it, and as they'd promised for Nora, beautifully blooming hubflowers blossomed from every part of the frame, inside and out, like some beautiful monument to the poor raider that had his brains smashed open as soon as he exited that set. The settlers tending to the farm were smiling and talking, while Danse hammered away to repair the roof up top. Not far from his head, on the top of the radio-tower was the Minutemen flag that flew so gently in the breeze.

  "YO DANCER!" John couldn't resist. Danse scowled from his spot when he looked up, for a moment the disdain for the nickname rising but turning into a smile when he remembered the voice that accompanied it. Danse had never said hello to John, instead just climbing down the steel ladder to meet the ghoul half-way from the farm to the building itself. John figured that they would always be awkward around each other until one of them died. 

  "Hancock. Is... there something wrong?" A dark eyebrow raised as the synth looked down at the ghoul, and not in the bad way. Danse was just taller than John by a good 4 inches. Gone was that sickly orange jumpsuit, instead replaced with road leathers that did little to hide the dirt under Danse's fingernails.

  "Nah, nothing of extreme importance." _**Only the future of his pride and joy.**_ "You mind if we shoot the shit? I brought some Gwinnette Stout just for you." He grinned playfully as he would to one of his many good friends, or to Danse when he was up to something mischievous.

  Reluctantly Danse complied, and they walked into the small little shanty that was Danse's room. It was four metal walls, a side-table and a bed and a dresser. John sat on the floor while Danse sat on the bed awkwardly enormous for it. They drank, and they talked, of good times and bad. He told Danse of how he'd met the Lone Wanderer and how the vault dweller reunited with Dogmeat. **_Who knew a dog had a thing for people who wear blue?_**  

Danse told him of how he'd sworn he had seen Codsworth floating on one of the towering highways, and heard him humming (the Mr. Handy had disappeared from Sanctuary Hills after Nora's death, and no one had known what happened until that point or been able to catch up to him). It occurred to him that every conversation he had ever had with Danse had always had something to do with Nora. He wondered briefly if they ever would've been friends acquaintances if it weren't for her. 

"Danse.. I gotta tell you something." John uttered, downing back the last of his beer. Danse looked up, lightly swirling his bottle that was only half finished. He looked as if he was expecting the news of another dead friend, and honestly John couldn't blame him. The year had been hard on all the companions, but especially himself. John remembered how he wept for days, and how he screamed at anyone who had tried to console him from Nora's death.. He shook the thoughts away and persisted anyway. "I'm stepping down from Goodneighbor."

Danse blinked twice, and was silent for a pregnant moment, as if thinking on his words. "You're.. Sure about this?"

John held up a hand, and closed his eyes smiling as if he was expecting a long speech about responsibility. "Absolutely.. I've been Mayor of Goodneighbor for more than 12 years, and I'm comfortable to be here with you right now and to not worry about what's going on with my town.. That's the sign I should step down."

Danse hesitated again, before speaking and raising his beer in a light cheers. "Well.. Best of luck to you and the new leader." He never lost that military lifestyle, John noted. His posture, his confidence, all through that.

"I'm choosing you to be my replacement." And that was when beer was spewed all over Hancock's face. John laughed musically, and Danse scowled, setting his bottle down on the side table.

"Very funny."

John giggled, grasping his sides and wiping his face as he tried to get a hold of himself before looking up. "No, I'm.. ehehe.. I'm serious."

Danse stiffened, as if the stick that had taken a year to come out of his ass had been rammed right back up there. "What makes _**you**_ think I would want to be mayor?!"

"Oh, I know you don't want to be Mayor." John rolled his shoulders until he heard one satisfying pop. "But you're the perfect person for the job." 

He was flabbergasted. "Again, why me?!" 

"Because you're on both sides of the war, Danse." His smile curled downwards. "You're a former decorated Paladin for the Brotherhood of Steel."  

Danse huffed, taking another sip of his beer. "Emphasis on _former_." 

"You're also a synth who didn't know it. Someone who had all the memories that turned out to never be true. You've hit rock bottom and risen to the very top.. I mean.. Look at this place!" John raised his hands. "Nora is laughing at me from her grave, because of _your_ accomplishments." 

Danse made a face of defiance, something that John got tired of quickly. "I don't **want** the job."

John leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees, eyes narrowing. "You're _**taking**_ the job."

" ** _You_** can't make me."

"Danse, the best person for the job is the person who doesn't _want_ the job." 

"I'm not doing it. I can't and I won't." The man shook his head, tossing his bottle into a bucket of garbage he'd recycle later. 

"Danse, you're the.." He crosses his arms, taking in a deep breath and swallowing his pride, internally cursing Nora for having changed his patience for the better. If this were Goodneighbor before he met her, he might've just gutted Danse and kept walking. _GoddamnyouNoraformakingthishardallthiscivilshit._ "You're the only person I trust with my city." 

  That brought on a cold silence that Hancock couldn't stand for more than a few seconds, any longer and he'd drown.

  "Bunker Hill will be merging with us soon.. And Goodneighbor needs a positive change. I could have asked any other companion to take the job. Curie, Piper, Nick, MacCready, even Preston Garvey.. But I know that you would do it because you would always be doubting your decisions... So you look me in the face and tell me **_why_** you can't do it."

  Danse looked up for the first time, looking directly into Hancock's eyes. _"_ I'll _..."_

 

**_"I'll take the job."_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I was always really disappointed that Hancock and Danse still treated each other the same way after Blind Betrayal.. I was inspired to write this after thinking for a while, who would Hancock have take his place if he needed to step down? He's been at this for at least 10 years (referenced in the game). I also can't help but think that Goodneighbor and Bunker Hill are within good enough range to clear out the space in between them to become one whole city (c'mon, let's make Goodneighbor big enough for everyone). 
> 
> Please feel free to leave comments! :D


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